


Girls' Night

by Captain_Repression



Series: Babysitting [2]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Body Sharing, Comedy, Cuddling, Fluff, Vitas - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 03:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Repression/pseuds/Captain_Repression
Summary: A sequel to Metronidazole.After keeping the Venom symbiote for a few days to help Eddie out, Anne volunteered to do it again if he needed to go anywhere not safe for the alien. It wasn't so bad, and actually, she had fun. Not so long after, Eddie is mysteriously given a ticket to a Vitas concert, and takes Anne's offer so he can attend.





	Girls' Night

**Author's Note:**

> So, after multiple requests, I managed to write a sequel to the previous fic. I'm afraid this will be the last for this series. I already had fewer ideas to work with, and one must know when to stop thinning the sauce.  
> If you haven't read Metronidazole, I recommend starting out there, I tried not making it essential, but there are a few references to it so it's probably better to read in order.

“So this is it, then? We're going through this again?”

Dan commented as Anne hung up the phone. He didn't truly object, it had been fun the last time, but it was also scary. But to stay with her implied accepting some weirdness into one's life, and he could live with that.

When he had started dating Anne, he hadn't expected her ex to come back in her life the way he did. Staying friends was good, of course, but he first met Eddie at about the same time he got involved with a literal space alien, and no matter how hard they tried, the two brought a little bit of madness everywhere they went. At some point in the process – she had been reluctant to give him the details – Anne had discovered she was able to host the Venom symbiote, at least for short periods of time, and after Eddie's recent sickness, when he needed medicine his partner didn't tolerate, she had agreed to host them whenever staying with Eddie wasn't safe.

“Don't pretend you didn't have fun the last time,” she chuckled.

“I had ten percent fun, ninety percent fear.”

“You're like that about rollercoasters too, but you ride them whenever you have a chance.”

“Well, I didn't say no, did I? So what's up? I hope Eddie's not sick again.”

“Oh no,” she reassured, “he got tickets to Vitas's show, anonymous donor with some dirt on the Russian pop culture industry, and given that Vitas is apparently easy to approach at the end of his shows, there's potential for some juicy journalism in there, not just entertainment.”

“An anonymous donor!” It was Dan's turn to chuckle. “I wonder if it has anything to do with the 'Ticket Master' charge on our credit card. And here I thought you wanted to surprise me!”

Anne was speechless for a moment. She hadn't expected to be found out that easily.

“Alright, I wanted a girls' night again! You're invited too, of course. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier.”

He shrugged: “It's your body I guess.” Part of him wanted to say “but it's my sanity too,” but he had a feeling that it would only amuse her, so he kept it for himself.

* * *

 

At least, the exchange went a lot more smoothly than the last. Eddie wasn't sick, Anne wasn't being rushed, and the symbiote knew that a stay at Auntie Annie's was probably going to be fun. They chatted for a short time, and finally, Eddie took his most serious tone of voice for one final instruction:

“I know what you did last time. Don't go out and eat anyone, ok? Please.”

With both concerned parties promising to behave, he finally held out his hands, black fluid oozing out through his skin and pooling into his palms, forming delicate tendrils that probed the air for contact. Anne placed her finger into their course, and they wrapped it hungrily, crawling up her whole arm before finally sinking in. The being was able to enter without hardly being felt, but it chose to spread out to nudge as many nerve endings as possible on its way in, as a weird kind of greeting.

“Well hello to you too,” was all she found to say.

* * *

 

When Eddie was finally on his way, Dan asked: “So what are your plans? You wouldn't have lured Eddie away without some ideas for the night.”

“Oh a girls' night is always a big part improvisation. Got to see what we all want to do, right? Food, TV, gossips, going out and getting drunk...” she paused a moment, “alright, one vote against getting drunk down here. Anyway, whatever sounds like fun.”

She turned her attention away from Dan.

“Well, you've been able to talk to me faster than last time, you remembered your way around? ... What? That's gross!!”

Dan sighed. The weirdness was starting. “What did he say?”

“He said he left cells behind after he figured his way around, they call him back straight to the right spots.”

“Hypnocytes,” Dan helpfully supplied. “That's how we call sleeper cells left in a host, to reactivate later. Usually it's to ride out the immune response, but I figure a more complex organism has a more complex use for them.”

Anne's hand suddenly shot forward and closed around his wrist. Blackness flowed from it, coiling around his arm. He screamed in surprise, then looked at his fiancé's face. It was her face, but the expression wasn't hers. Her eyes, in particular, had a glint that the light couldn't account for, and when she spoke, it was with an accent that wasn't her own.

“ **Let us look into your brain, Dan. It won't hurt.** ”

He tried to shake free, but her grip was unbreakable.

“ **We don't know the words to talk about what I do. I never had a host who knew them. It could be important, if we need to ask for help, if we get hurt in a way I can't heal.** ”

Dan paused a moment to make sense of the pronoun switches. Venom defaulted to identifying as who they were together with their host, but also carried their own individuality around, and some of their actions belonged only to the latter. The English language wasn't designed with that in mind. It was interesting, but at the moment, it only mattered as far as making sure he was phrasing a desperate “no” properly.

“Please stay out of me. I'll tell you whatever you want, but not that way, okay? Please.”

And just like that, Anne's body was returned to her control. She released his hand as if nothing has happened.

“You're not scolding him,” Dan remarked, “that means he took over with your permission. Did you think it would be funny to utterly horrify me?”

“No!” She sounded moderately offended. “He wanted to ask you directly, and that's exactly what we did.”

“Did he have to be so creepy?”

“I don't think he knows how not to be.”

* * *

 

They sat on the couch debating what to do next. With Venom talking mostly into Anne's head without manifesting outwardly, Dan had a hard time following, so he spent most of the time silent.

“Why would we be Venom the whole evening?” Anne was arguing. “We're at home, what would we even be doing?”

“ **We're at home, nobody will be upset by our presence. Eddie lets us out all the time.** ”

“That sounds like me when I was six years old and persuaded that my babysitter would eventually believe I was actually allowed to eat cookies before supper.”

“ **Didn't they?** ”

“No, why would any adult believe... no actually I can believe you. Eddie _would_ let you out just any time, wouldn't he? That's... that's entirely in character for him.”

“I'm not sure about that,” Dan said. “Venom is, well, noticeable, and I've never seen Eddie's curtains shut, and there are other tall buildings around. They'd be transforming while any neighbour could peek in, that doesn't seem like a prudent thing to do.”

“Disregarding that would also be entirely in character for him. V, you two've been playing hero, I know that. You could end up with serious enemies, that's why you usually see superheroes keep a secret identity, make sure no one sees them change or follows them home. Somehow I can't imagine Eddie not doing everything in full sight and if anybody asks, say something dumb like 'Durr I 'ave a parasite' and call it a day.”

“ **That is a disturbingly accurate guess.** ”

She stared blankly for a moment. She had thought she was being unfairly mean there, but it turned out Eddie's special mixture of smarts and utter obliviousness was not done blowing her mind. She preferred returning to the original topic rather than think too hard about that:

“Look, I get why you'd want out more. I couldn't imagine spending most of my life in the backseat, so I won't keep you down all the way either. But we'll settle on a plan first, because I'm not handing my body over to an orally fixated weirdo unconditionally.”

“Now there,” Dan chimed in again, “I don't think it's fair to call an extraterrestrial a weirdo, we can't begin to imagine how different his culture must be, we must be just as weird to him.”

“No, I'm sure he's plain weird, like he was that weird kid that ate glue on his own planet, and probably still eats glue now.”

“Actually, pica syndrome, you know, craving non-food items, can indicate a nutritional deficiency or a developmental condition, I'd want your 'weird kid' properly assessed instead of called weird.”

“I'd hardly call glue 'non-food', the stuff kids use are made of gelatin and starch, and the white glue doesn't taste half bad.”

“How do you know that, Anne?”

“Ok, Venom, let's talk evening plans and completely ignore Dan from now on.”

She breathed deeply and forced the embarrassment to wash away from her expression before going on:

“Do you think we'd have time to play superhero tonight? Everyone fantasised about having powers and saving people at least once, it sounds like a fun thing to try for real, while I can. I think I'd like to try stalking dark alleys, scaling buildings, following the scent of fear to those in need of saving. To be one more shadow in the darkness, creeping behind the oppressor, to see the victim's eyes widen when they realise the devil heard their prayer after all, to turn predator into prey, they scream once, no time for more, roughness of hair against our palate, taste of chemicals, the soaps and lotions on a face's skin, sweat, dirt, the sudden ...”

Anne shut up when Dan threw a cushion at her face.

“Neither of you can do poetry worth a damn, you're only sounding ridiculous.”

She treated the interruption as a mere annoyance:

“All I'm saying is, it would be fun to try.” She thought for a moment and added: “We both promised Eddie we wouldn't eat anyone this time. Don't worry.”

Somehow, Dan allowed himself to be talked into going out with them. Anne acted disinhibited with the symbiote, he wasn't sure if it was its effect on brain chemistry or just the presence of another mind tuning in to one's own that acted like a permanent enabler, but he found it a source of worry and entertainment at once, and he preferred to stick with them for both reasons.

Despite having negotiated that they would not do more than eat at a few fast foods and climb one (1) building, Anne changed clothes first – she'd rarely allow herself to be seen outside dressed down – and stuffed her card holder into her pocket.

* * *

 

The sun had set, and rush hour was well over, as long as they stuck to the small streets they had the way to themselves.

“Dan,” she asked, “I need you to be honest with me. When Venom and I are... together. Are we... naked?”

He stopped to think of an appropriate answer.

“As a doctor, you know I often have to see people undressed in a professional setting, so I think I can speak with authority there and say that you do look extremely naked.”

She frowned a little. “At least he smooths over personal areas, so it's no worse than wearing a bathing suit.”

Dan fell silent a moment, then tried to hold back a laugh and choked.

“Oh God. I just imagined... a less considerate symbiote would just let everything hang out?”

“I wonder if Eddie had a chance to get a good look at Riot, then. I mean, Drake was kind of cute wasn't he?”

Dan just stared.

She addressed the alien: “So you got the beginning of a reputation as a scary kind of hero in the poorer areas of town. Defending people the police generally ignores, that sort of things. How is it like?”

“ **You know it, we hunted down three union busters.** ”

“They were two evil old man and one evil old woman, helpless in their hotel room. Hardly the same as stopping a violent criminal right before they stab an innocent victim. I heard some people actually sought you out for help, that's real hero stuff.”

“ **It is the same spirit. With Eddie, we sense the evil threatening the helpless and overlooked. With you, we sense the evil shielded behind mazes of paper and lies. You shape our hunger, it is fortunate that you both crave justice.** ”

“We're not familiar with the same kind of evil, but at the end of the day, you're still hunting bad guys. Better be careful though, you know what they say, you are what you eat!”

“You're discussing eating people again?” Dan objected, “That's not the kind of evening we're planning, everyone agrees?”

They were nearing a commercial street when Anne froze, as if startled. Dan tried to follow her gaze, but found nothing out of the ordinary. She pointed at a small apartment block, barely sticking out from the surrounding buildings.

“I'll climb this one.”

“It doesn't look like much,” Dan said, “what's special about it?”

“Intuition.”

* * *

 

A claw digs into mortar, another chips a groove into the brick; enough of a handhold to throw the body's weight forward. A hand closes around a pipe... too fragile, the gutter drain collapses and rips out. The hand lets it go and tentacles stretch from the palm and wrist, finding the wall's corner and seeping into crevices, adhering where it's too smooth to grab. The stumble barely slowed the climb.

One more jump, grab the fire exit stair from below. A sudden sharp pain, briefly shaking the body. The shock to the metal structure made it ring to a nasty frequency, but there was a quick way away from it; they let go of their holds, let gravity pull them to safety. Two floors lower, they shot out tentacles from their chest and back, catching the wall, the edge of the roof on the next building, and turned their fall into a swing, still several meters above the ground.

Anne wasn't scared. If she resisted, if she didn't want to be Venom, it would be terrifying. But right now, she was letting the other lead, and just experienced the adventure through their perception. They rightfully felt invulnerable, knew exactly where they'd catch themselves, how easily they'd beat gravity. More tentacles stretched ahead of them, pulling them forward, and the ones further behind let go and retracted into their body. They glided this way over the alley before pulling themselves back towards the wall. They almost started to climb again, intent on reaching the rooftop, but felt that intuition again, that something interesting was going on. They crept along the wall to investigate it.

A running man suddenly rounded the corner. The lights of a police car lit the entrance in red and blue. The alley was a dead-end, a tall fence blocking its end. The police had probably not seen the man take this turn, they'd have followed already, but if he turned back, they would certainly see him exit. He calculated his options, whether climbing the fence or breaking into the side buildings gave him better chances. He opted for the former. Visibly not a good climber, he pushed a discarded dresser against the fence and stepped on it, reached for the top pole, and screamed.

They were crouching on top of the fence, greeting him with their best grin. They caught him before he fell off his perch, their intent was not to break his neck... yet.

“ **Running from the law, are you?** ”

They climbed down, allowing the young man to stand on the ground again. His eyes filled with tears.

“Please don't eat me!”

“ **We'll see. What are you, a thief, a dealer, a murderer? Why are you running?** ”

“I... I took a six pack of beer from the corner store.”

“ **A petty criminal, not a monster.** ”

“You won't eat me?”

“ **We've been told that we are what we eat. We do not eat petty criminals.** ”

He was not about to comment on the literal monster's attempt at wit. Rather, he whimpered, as the toothy face moved closer to his.

“ **Such a dumb mistake shouldn't define your life, should it? But with the police on your heels, you'll need a little help. How fortunate you found us.** ”

“What?” He paused, not knowing what to think anymore. “What can you do to help?”

The great clawed hands released him, and one of them did... some kind of sleight of hand? Suddenly, it was holding a piece of paper, pulled out of nowhere. The creature pressed it into his palm.

“ **Don't wait for the police to find you. Turn around, walk out of the alley slowly, say you surrender, and don't lose this.** ”

They jumped at one of the shorter buildings' walls and, in a few powerful leaps, disappeared behind the rooftop. The thief looked at the card in his hand.

 

Anne Weying

Criminal law

tel. 415-357-2403

fax. 415-357-3562

 

“Oh. Of course.”

 

* * *

Anne found Dan waiting one corner away.

“Sorry I missed the show, I couldn't keep up. Had fun?”

“Inky has killer intuition, he lead me right into a crime in progress.”

“Oh God. Please tell me you didn't kill anyone.”

“Have more faith in me! But it might be taken as Venom unofficially endorsing my law practice.”

“What happened?”

“You know how you said we looked naked as Venom? Let's just said we worked... for the exposure.”

“We need to get the symbiote out of you soon, it's devouring your sense of humour.”

She told him her story with only a minimal amount of puns. As an incursion into the heroics lifestyle, it wasn't bad, and nobody had died for once.

“ **Inky?** ” the voice intruded after she was done.

“You don't like it?”

“ **You have better terms of endearment than Eddie.** ”

“I can easily imagine. He probably comes up with dumb nicknames like 'oozebuster' or something.”

“ **This would actually be a step up**.”

“Oh. My. God.”

They toured the area's fast foods as planned – there seemed to be no end to what the alien could metabolise – and finally went home. If Eddie was successful at grabbing the singer's attention after the show, he would be coming quite late, so they were probably in for a TV marathon and gossip session.

* * *

 

“ **When there are more of a chemical the closer you are to something, and it tells cells where to move, no brain involved. Like when Anne is in the bedroom, you turn the coffee machine on, and Anne moves to the kitchen.** ” Anne's tone changed as she reclaimed control. “Hey! What are you making me say?”

“So I think what you're trying to describe is chemotactism. Like following a smell, but on a cell level, right?”

Dan was making good on his promise to teach Venom some medical vocabulary, but found himself pretty far from his specialty. He made efforts to steer the conversation towards the more general processes, because the parts regarding the species' exact lifestyle proved a thorough refresher on his parasitology course, and he didn't know how far he could expand on it in innocent sounding terms. The alien was mutualistic out of a moral choice, but their biology told another story, it would be easier if they weren't so self-conscious about it! He volunteered information on cell receptors, diffusion, cytokines, but they wanted to know about encystment, myzocytosis and similarly suspicious topics. He was beginning to sweat a little.

“He knows, you know.” Anne stopped him. “He's not stupid, he knows what kind of creatures forced humans to study those processes. But he finds it touching how hard you try to spare his feelings.”

“Seriously? Good to know my near panic attack was appreciated.”

“Also he thinks watching you squirm is funny.”

Dan folded his arms in frustration.

“Pretty glad you blew up that rocket. Wouldn't have more like you around.”

“He says...” she frowned “He says it's as well you stopped the biology discussion before finding out he reproduces asexually, then.”

“I don't have the energy to think about the massive sanitary crisis this might lead to right now.”

* * *

 

Dan turned on the TV and laid back. Anne placed her arm around his shoulders and leaned on him, smiling, not oddly, but not quite her way.

“That's funny,” he remarked, “when you're together it's never just one that's in control, you just won't let go. With Eddie, it's just his big dumb self until it's not.”

“ **Anne has edge.** ” There it was, that tone in her voice. “ **She likes control. So we like control.** ”

“And Eddie is soft, so you're more chill with him? Doesn't it bother you to change like this?”

“ **Change is in our nature. A host is not only nutrients and shelter. It gives form, and spirit. Eddie is better, but we also like who we are with Anne.** ”

The hand on his shoulder rose, and the symbiote wrapped around it, merging with the flesh without changing it much yet, aside from the robust claws it armed the fingers with. Anne's eyes looked at it as it flexed, as if it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Odd to think that the unstoppable, terrifying monstrosity, the thing with the teeth and tentacles and neverending hunger, was in fact a big lump of sentimentality.

Then she... or they, turned it towards his head, petting his hair. The claws tickled his scalp, but the motion was clearly Anne's, he knew it from every time they cuddled. Dan shivered, and tried to joke his way out of the expressing his feelings:

“You sure must love Eddie a lot, to stick to a host that's so maladaptative. No offense, but the man is a mess.”

“ **He is not. He has valuable skills. Humans are interdependent, contacts bring more power than inherent strength. He knows people, everywhere, finds new ones when he needs. He makes friends, strong ones. You, Anne, me. You need to learn to think like a human, to understand.** ”

“... I'll try that.”

The hand gently pulled his head against Anne's. Dark fluid was slowly pouring out, taking over her whole body little by little. He looked away while her face disappeared into a grinning mask. It was an interesting sight, but not from that close. He stopped resisting and leaned against them.

“ **We like you, Dan. Both, we both have reasons.** ”

“Anne told me hers before, but why does Venom like me, then? We started out fighting.”

“ **Exactly. You threatened me, Dan, you would have killed me if you could. I did not trust you at the time, do you have any idea how close I was to ripping your throat out?** ”

“That certainly sounds like the beginning of love.”

“ **Right!** ”

“That was sarcastic. That sounds like something enemies would do.”

“ **Are you kidding? You believed I was hurting Eddie. You literally faced death to protect him. That makes you at least an ally. And ridiculously brave.** ”

Dan didn't mention that at the time, he hadn't expected the “parasite” to put up a fight. The alien's respect made him feel better than he probably should. The clawed hand still played in his hair; he placed his own hand on top of it, pressing lightly, encouraging it. As their attention drifted on and off the TV, they gradually slumped to the side. Venom's free hand slipped under him and lifted him as if he weighted nothing, while the strong slick body positioned itself across the couch, lying down and cradling him. Dan was... very okay with that.

An impossibly strong arm laid gently across his chest, his cheek rested against a jaw that could rip him apart effortlessly, yet he felt thoroughly relaxed. This was, in part at least, the person he trusted the most, and that powerful, terrifying, monstrous form didn't take that away. Fingers still traced familiar patterns as they played against his skin, that sharp grin widened and relaxed at the same times he expected, the eyes narrowed in contentment when his breath tickled its neck. He could still recognise Anne in there, somehow, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to understand the feelings this evoked.

A deep hissing sound startled him from the doze that was slowly claiming him. He instinctively recoiled at the sight his eyes opened to: Venom's jaws stretched as far open as they would go, exposing teeth over two inches long, and their tongue curled forward into a curve that could easily hook his whole head and pull it in.

“Yawning? Out of all the behaviours you could learn from your host, that's the point in that one? Aside from giving me a heart attack.”

“ **Share everything like this.** ” The voice was just a rumble now. “ **Feeling soft. Warm. Good.** ”

Dan reached up and ran his hand along the sleepy monster's face, feeling the liquid softness if its skin, contrasting with the hard sharpness of its teeth, the outlines of the human form that let it build this shape in the first place. The eyes were probably as invulnerable as the rest, but they still closed when his fingers wandered too near, and didn't open again. He dug his face more closely into the curve of their neck, still trailing his hand along their face, shoulder and arm, until his own muscles went limp and the night claimed him too.

* * *

 

Eddie did get to talk to Vitas, and that held him up well into the night. The singer hadn't been as available as rumored, but Eddie had more than one trick up his sleeve, and properly used, a press card was a superpower in its own right. He'd do some more research on the outrageous Russian pop industry, and, on top of the surprise interview he scored tonight, he'd have pretty good material for an article.

He was already outlining it in his head while he climbed the step to Anne's house. Because old habits die hard, his first move was to try the doorknob, and it turned out it was unlocked. Well, the couple didn't have to fear hypothetical home invaders tonight, he knew the symbiote was able to use its powers while bonded with Anne – if anything, she was even hangrier and them – but he was protective and couldn't help feeling a little worried. So, instead of announcing his presence, Eddie walked in in silence.

It wasn't hard to find the occupants. The TV was left on with the sound low, but not turned off, and the sound guided him to where they were lying on the couch in a motionless pile. It was the most ridiculous scene he'd ever walked in on. The couch was long, but Venom's body was longer, their feet touching the floor past the armrest. Dan was loosely curled up on top of them, held snugly like a baby, drooling all over them like a baby, too. They couldn't have noticed, having drooled quite a bit down their own chest as well. Venom's face was an odd sight, their eyelids fused shut and smoothed in their gooey kind of way, the mouth shut and reduced to a narrow crack, leaving their head an almost featureless globe. He ran his hand over it, startling the beast awake.

The symbiote quickly retreated into Anne's body, hiding its shame. She tried to kick the suddenly too heavy Dan off her, and rolling off the couch was the only way he managed to untangle himself from this position without crushing her. She pulled herself up until she was at least sitting up, and waved her hands in a defensive motion:

“This isn't what it looks like!”

“This looks like...” Eddie looked around again. “Like you cuddled each others to sleep watching infomercials.”

“Alright, this is exactly what it looks like.”

“How did you even have that idea? When we are Venom, with all this power at hand, sharing a mind with someone that is, to say the least, a bit of a thrill seeker, our first thought is not 'let's take a nap.' I didn't even know he _could_ sleep!”

He moved to take place on the couch. Timid tendrils stretched from Anne's flesh and reached for him, but he pulled away.

“Not so fast.”

He saw her face contract with second hand anguish – the Other didn't take rejection very well, not even for a minute. But after what he's just seen in this living room, Eddie felt like he was owed one.

“Did you think you'd get away with this so easily?” He moved closer again. “First, I want a hug too.”

 

* * *

 

Thanks to Jessica for proofreading this!  
<https://archiveofourown.org/users/comebackjessica/pseuds/comebackjessica>


End file.
